By what [things] morals may be reformed — many [lessons] can be drawn hence. I. How disparate [is] the mind of those who hear, and see, the same divine things! Some come to their senses, and are turned to better [things]; others remain in their sins — nay, devise and contrive worse [things]. The Gabaonites heard the marvels which the Lord had done for the sake of the Jews, and joined themselves to their sacred [rites]. The Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Pherezites, Jebusites, and Hevites heard [them], “and gathered themselves together likewise, to fight against Joshua and Israel, with one mind and one resolve” (this ch. 9, v. 1).
II. There is nothing to be feared, when we tend toward the promised land of the heavens, even if against us there conspire, “with one mind and one resolve,” the Hittites, Amorites, and the others already named — who are all the impious, the phalanxes of demons, the columns of evil companions, the troops of heretics, the whole world itself, the flesh, and the devil. “If God [be] for us, who [is] against us?” If Joshua [be] our Leader, who shall oppress even the fewest and weakest [of us]? And for this passage it will avail, if thou look at the interpretation of the names which these nations have. The Hittite is “terrible”; the Amorite, “talkative”; the Canaanite, “merchant”; the Pherezite, “rustic” [pagan], dwelling in unwalled villages; the Hevite, “messenger and Judge”; the Jebusite, “trampler [treader-down].”
III. To no one ought this life, and any possession whatsoever of the fleeting goods of this world, to be so dear, that for their sake he would lie. Otherwise the true Jesus will take vengeance. The Gabaonites lied. But [it was] “for [their] safety and the preservation of their life.” Were [they] unpunished before Joshua?
IV. Enemies surrendering themselves and supplicating are deservedly to be heard. Whence also that ancient Dodonaean oracle: μηδ᾽ ἱκέτας ἀδικεῖν, ἱκέται ἱεροί τε καὶ ἁγνοί [mēd’ hiketas adikein, hiketai hieroi te kai hagnoi, “do not wrong suppliants; suppliants [are] holy and pure”]. This Chytraeus proves by the examples of Otto I, Henry III, Conrad, Sigismund, Maximilian, and Charles V — [Chytraeus], although a Lutheran, [saying] thus of this: “Charles V pardoned the Duke of Jülich, [the Duke] of Württemberg, and many other suppliant princes and cities after the Smalcaldic war, and moderated the penalty” — as the Poet of Mainz wrote of him: “One hand wages war, the other renders peace; as of a certain Attila, he grants treaties to suppliants, and lays low the rebellious.”
V. [Men] most wise and most holy — because they are men — we see sometimes err, slip, and sin in some circumstance, even while they act well. Joshua and the other Princes did well [in that] they gave peace to those envoys asking for it, [and] assented to their petition; but they did ill [in] that they did not consult the mouth of the Lord (v. 14).
VI. In all things — but especially in those which have something of doubt and peril — we ought always to consult the mouth of the Lord, to see what his holy law prescribes; what the Prophets, Evangelists, Apostles and Apostolic men, and the sacred Canons [prescribe]. For so also David did (2 Kings [2 Samuel] 21).
VII. The sanctity and religion [binding force] of covenants and oaths ought to be firm before all. Joshua and the Princes — even when they saw themselves deceived by the fraudulent arts and words of the Gabaonites, and basely mocked; when they detected them in the midst of their [own] inheritance; when they saw the people taking [it] ill and tumultuating — reckoned [that] what they had sworn was by no means to be rescinded. St. Ambrose (bk. 3, On Duties, ch. 10): “In all things, therefore, faith [good faith] is comely, justice pleasing, the measure of equity delightful. But what shall I say of the other contracts — and especially of the purchase of estates, or of transactions and pacts? Are they not formulas of honesty [requiring] that evil guile be absent, and that he whose guile has been detected be liable to a double penalty? Everywhere, therefore, the consideration of honesty preponderates, which excludes guile [and] casts out fraud. Whence David the Prophet rightly brought forth a general sentence, saying: ‘[He who] did no evil to his neighbor.’ Not only, then, in contracts (in which even the faults of the things which are sold are ordered to be disclosed; and, unless the seller has made [them] known — although he has transferred [them] into the purchaser’s right — [contracts] are voided by an action for guile) — but also generally, in all [things], guile ought to be absent: simplicity is to be opened, truth to be intimated. And this ancient formula concerning guile — not of the jurists, but the sentence of the Patriarchs — the divine scripture evidently expressed in the book of the Old Testament which is entitled ‘Jesus [Joshua] son of Nun.’” Masius accuses the levities of our times in perjuries and false swearings. But see St. Chrysostom in several places, and Michael Baius (in the little book On the Antwerp Oath, in the year 1582).
VIII. [That] it is lawful sometimes to inflict some penalty even on surrendered enemies — but, according to the variety of faults, a greater or a lesser [one]. St. Ambrose (bk. 1, On Duties, ch. 29): “How great justice is, can be understood from this — that it is excepted neither by places, nor by persons, nor by times — [justice] which is reserved even for enemies. As, if it be agreed with an enemy [that] either a place or a day [be set] for battle, [it is] reckoned against justice to anticipate [him] either in place or in time. For it matters whether one be taken [captured] in some battle and grave conflict, or by [some] superior favor or some chance. Since, indeed, on more violent and faithless enemies, and on those who have injured [us] more, a more violent vengeance is rendered — as on the Midianites, who through their women had made very many of the people of the Jews to sin, whence also the anger of God was poured out upon the people of the fathers. And therefore it came about that Moses, [as] victor, allowed none [of them] to survive; but the Gabaonites — who had assailed the people of the fathers by fraud rather than by war — Joshua did not storm [utterly destroy], but afflicted with the hardship of an imposed condition.”
IX. Hypocrisy and dissimulation are to be shunned by us, [we] who cannot deceive our Jesus. For all [things] lie open to his eyes. No antiquity and humility of garments, no want of bread and drink, no lack and cheapness of all things, will commend us to him — even if we should seem, before the eyes of men, most religious, most humble, [and] most poor.
X. If ever some [affair] of someone, against [his] superiors,
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[If ever some [affair] of someone, against [his] superiors,] should chance to give occasion of murmuring, yet we ought always to bear ourselves modestly toward them — by the Joshuan example of this people, who, the Princes bringing forward some reason, at once acquiesced (although it was not firm enough; although, even if it were firm, they could have eluded it, as the Romans [did] in the Caudine peace; although a great [thing] seemed to be given to the Gabaonites out of the peace, and a great loss to be received, on account of the very ample spoils, and some lost portion of certain places; although, finally, the Princes’ consent to the covenant was not free from some fault and rashness).
XI. On the contrary, if there be some murmur of inferiors, and a cause underlie it — as can sometimes happen — [and] not some unjust [murmur], the example of Joshua and the other Princes is here to be looked at, who did not reckon [it] against their authority if they yielded a little something to the people; and, since they could less honestly and usefully revoke the whole of what had been sworn, they thought out some middle [course], whereby they might satisfy both the Gabaonites and the people, and depart in no thing from the laws of God.
XII. The modesty of the Gabaonites is also to be imitated — [they] who first were not ashamed, ragged, in cheaper little cloaks, to come to the camp of enemies, into the sight of Joshua and the Princes; to profess themselves servants of these, and of the whole people; then to become camp-servants [calones] and sutlers [lixae] — that is, to live [as] the vilest, as it were, slaves. Necessity indeed extorted this from them; but a happy necessity, which compels to good, as St. Augustine said (Epistle 45).
XIII. This too, in Joshua and the princes, is not unworthy of imitation — that in all things they have greater regard for the divine glory than for their own profit. For because they had sworn “in [the name of] the God of Israel,” as the Hebrew says — or, as our [Vulgate], “because they had sworn in the name of the God of Israel” — therefore they will [have] the oath [to be] sacred and holy; and, although they could have applied the Gabaonites’ labor to their own advantage only, yet they prefer to assign [it] to God’s tabernacle and altar. How many [there are who] take [it] ill that servants and handmaids are more religious, more given to prayers, more removed from fraud and wantonness, [and] more God-fearing [than themselves]? Not so Joshua, not so those Princes, who give the Gabaonites wholly to sacred works.